Power in the Blood

some of which I had never heard before. The next thing I knew, Jacobson was on the floor. It happened so quickly that it took my mind a few seconds to replay it, at a slower pace, so that I could comprehend what had happened. The tall white officer in front told Jacobson to turn around and spread them, and it looked as if he was actually about to when the short black officer stepped up and punched him hard at the base of the neck.

By the time my mind had finished the first scenario, the second one was already over. Jacobson was cuffed, face down on the rough concrete floor. They got him to his feet and spun him around. There was a mild abrasion on his forehead. He looked as calm as anyone I had ever seen. In fact, he appeared to be in a trance. He seemed to move in slow motion, but his movements lacked both direction and sturdiness.

“Let’s get him to medical,” Rotund said. “See about these cuts.” Then he added to Jacobson, “Next time I’m using the gas.”

“You better ask your captain first,” Jacobson whispered.

“Nobody touch this blood,” Rotund said as if he hadn’t heard Jacobson. “It’s bad blood in more ways that one.”

“Let me call the OIC first,” Strawberry said, beginning to walk back toward his desk. “Chaplain, can I talk with you for minute?”

“Sure,” I said looking back at Jacobson, who stared blankly at the wall in front of him.

As we walked down to the officer’s desk at the end of the corridor, I learned that Strawberry’s name was Rogers. When we passed by Starn’s cell, I stopped and looked in.

“Chaplain,” Starn asked, “do you believe that a demon can possess a man?”

“We already talked about this, Starn,” I said.

“I’m scared,” he said in the small voice of a scared child.

“Nothing spiritual good or bad can happen to you that you don’t allow or even invite,” I said. “You keep reading your Bible and praying. I’ll check in on you later, okay?”

“Okay,” he said in an upbeat voice again, easily soothed like a child.

Rogers propped his feet up on the desk without the problems Rotund had had. “What happened to make him go off like that?” he asked. I was seated across the desk from him.

“I really couldn’t say. He was okay, and then all of a sudden he exploded. Does he do that often?”

“He does pretty much whatever he wants to around here,” he said, and I could tell he wanted me to ask him for more.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just that certain inmates are looked out for by certain officers, and if the officer happens to be a captain, well, then they do pretty much what they want to. At least on that captain’s shift anyway. And, if the captain is popular or powerful enough, the inmate does pretty much whatever he wants anytime.”

“Who gives that kind of preferential treatment to an inmate as unstable as he is?”

“He’s not unstable. He’s a damn thespian.”

“You’re saying that was a show for my benefit?” I asked.

“I’m saying that everything he does is for show. It has an angle. He is always on the make. Did you say anything about Johnson to him?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Why?”

“Well, his death really seemed to shake him up. Like maybe he wasn’t acting. I don’t know, but I think he’s scared for real about that.”

“Do you think he had anything to do with it?”

“He had everything to do with Johnson. They were both down here constantly. So either he had something to do with it or it scared him shitless, excuse my language, because he had nothing to do with it.”

“Like it may have been a message to him?” I asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” he said as if that caused a light to come on in his head. “Yeah, that could be it.”

Rotund yelled from down the hall, “Come on. What’s taking so long?”

“Just a minute,” Rogers yelled back.

I glanced at my watch. It was almost time for my meeting with Tom Daniels and Edward Stone.

“I’d better be going now. I’ve got a meeting up front. What will happen with Jacobson?”

“He’ll be taken to medical, checked out, and probably taken to the isolation cell and sedated and watched for twenty-four hours. That is, unless Captain Skipper cuts him out.”

“Then what will happen to him?” I asked.

“He’ll be sent back down here, I guess,” he said with a shrug that said, I just work here.

“What’s the difference in being confined in one cell as opposed to another?”

“Not much during the day, but I’ve heard at night all sorts of weird stuff happens in here.”

“Thanks for the info,” I said.

“Anytime, Father,” he said respectfully.

Before leaving, I glanced down the hallway at Jacobson. If he had moved even an inch, I couldn’t tell it. He appeared to be catatonic. I walked out of confinement with these words whirling around in my head: There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the lamb. There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the lamb.

Chapter 9

They looked like men sitting around a barber shop on Saturday morning or senior citizens on a park bench or mall-wanderers: they had time to kill. Inmates don’t have much, but what they have they possess a lot of-time. They sat around the chapel library under the watchful eye of the officer temporarily assigned to watch them until my new assistant, a Jewish chaplain, was hired next month. Mr. Smith and three other inmates were reading Decision magazine, the monthly magazine that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association faithfully sent us free of charge. Mr. Smith and one of the other inmates were wearing headphones-listening to gospel music no doubt. On my way to meet with Mr. Stone and Tom Daniels, I decided to stop by the chapel to check in and pick up something to take notes on, sure our meeting would prove to be noteworthy.

When Mr. Smith saw me, he jumped up and walked out into the hallway where I was unlocking my office door. “They’s two who want to see you, Brother Chaplain,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, “but it will have to be when I get back. I’ve got a meeting with the superintendent in about ten minutes.”

“Yesuh. I tell them to wait. It so hot out there, they won’t mind waitin’ in here where it nice ’n cool. ’Sides they got nothin’ else to do.”

“Thank you,” I said and walked into my office. As I closed the door, the phone began to ring.

“Chaplain Jordan,” I said into the receiver.

“Is this the chaplain?” a distressed female voice asked.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “How can I help you?”

“This is Veronica Simpson. My husband Charles Simpson is an inmate there.”

“Uh huh,” I said encouragingly.

“I need to talk to him,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. “I haven’t heard from him in four months, and I need to talk to him right now. I’m not playing with you, and I’m not crazy, but I’ve got a gun to my head, and I’m going to kill myself and his two-year-old son if I can’t talk to him right now.”

My heart started racing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Whatever it took, I was not going to let another person die. So help me God, I was not. I had no way of knowing whether or not she would do it, but that really wasn’t the point.

“Okay,” I said, “now listen to me. I will let you talk to your husband, so just put the gun down and relax.”

“I’m not crazy. I swear,” she added quickly, her voice seeming to gain strength. “If I can just talk to him, I will not kill myself.”